Chapter 7 of Lebanon’s Penal code deals with sexual violence crimes. However, it only sentences rapists to 0-5 years of jail time, reducing the severity of rape to that of other crimes such as robbery, illegal drug consumption or signing blank checks.

Additionally, Chapter 7’s title, “Crimes That Affect Honor”, reveals that it holds the same societal taboo of rape being a matter of “honor” rather than a serious crime.

With the petrifying fear of being shamed by their families, and without a law to adequately protect them, 60% of rape survivors don’t dare speak up nor seek justice.

As the NGO that women in Lebanon rely on for protection, Abaad wants to change the law and increase the sentence for rape crimes.

To do that, Abaad needed to liberate the voices of rape - sparking its subversive advocacy campaign during the UN’s 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence.

In 2022, Abaad conducted a study that found 60% of women who are raped don’t report it because of honor. And without a law that adequately punishes rapists, survivors are left with nowhere to turn for protection or justice.

To substantiate our advocacy campaign in amending the law to protect survivors, we had to stop society’s shaming and blaming - to end the notion of women’s raped bodies being dirty laundry. Changing this taboo required we work with influencers capable of leveraging social media’s viral potential, maximize reach and subversively spark engagement.

Accordingly, we crafted our communication around two key influencers capable of cutting through Lebanese society’s rooted patriarchal attitude. We partnered with one of them particularly for her bold reputation of going viral on social with taboo-challenging content. Our co-creation fueled our aim of breaking the silence around rape to further pressure Members of Parliament into amending the law.

As part of an integrated campaign with various elements working to liberate rape survivors’ voices, one particular social video made an impactful contribution.

We co-created “Dirty Laundry” with Lebanon’s subversive multidisciplinary artist Remie Akl, the first women empowerment manifesto of its kind to dare emerge in the Middle East.

The video opens with women hung on clotheslines, a radically poetic illustration of how Lebanese society considers raped bodies as “dirty laundry” we should silence and hide. Remie uses her trademark lyricism and sarcasm to uncover silenced survivors’ internal battles, challenge the “dirty laundry” notion so survivors speak up and state our demand of creating a serious sentence for a serious crime.

Remie and Abaad shared the video on their Instagram accounts towards the end of the campaign. With the video’s subversively poignant nature, and both accounts’ follower base, the video caught fire on social media, garnering high reach and engagement.

In a society where raped women are silenced, shamed and labelled “dirty laundry”, our campaign liberated them in the most unprecedented way known to the Arab world:

Remie “Dirty Laundry” Film:

• Views: 5.2M

• Impressions: 6.4M

• Likes: 150K

Nour Arida “Not Your Honor” Web Series:

• Views: 30M

• Impressions: 36M

• Likes: 1.5M

and 100K shares.

Overall campaign results:

• Perceived Value: $2.6M.

• Impressions: 448M.

• Views: 75.2M

• Engagements: 4.3M

• Shares: 315K

• Likes: 3.6M

• Comments: 77K

• #1 Trending hashtag on Twitter within thirty minutes.

And most importantly, our intrusive communication shook our unshakeable system, whereby

8 out of 10 Parliament blocs gave their commitment to increase the rape sentence.